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Nota Bene

Our modern relationships have nothing to do anymore with the one our grandparents, or even our parents went through. Years of fights for equality have completely changed the relationships between men and women. Sometimes for the best, sometimes for the worst.
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Exploring the highs and lows of relationships

Tag Archives: infidelity

Why do we cheat? The number one reason is related to sex. When we don’t feel satisfied sexually either by a lack of sex or of emotions, we tend to search other gardens. The next reason is simply because we fall in love with someone else. Some people also cheat out of revenge (because they’ve been cheated). Some people also cheat because they search for different experiences every day, week,…

Recently, one of my friends told me that every woman who is over 40 is a cheater. I was shocked when he said that, because most of my female friends who are over 40 are not that kind. Most of them are happily married. They would admit to me if they were cheating on their husband. Women who are 40 are at top of their sexually, so yes, they can be very demanding sexually. But it’s not a reason to be a cheater because of that.

To be cheated is a betrayal. Some couples do survive infidelity though. And polyamorous couples do accept their significant other’s lovers. But we’re not all forgiving infidelity. Because we’re jealous animals.

Most of my friends told me if their significant other cheat on them, they will have difficulty to forgive. One of them even ask me to tell her the truth about her significant other if I see him with another woman. My friend was cheated when she was younger. She found, three days before of her wedding, her future husband with another girl on his lap kissing and laughing in a bar. Since then, she has had difficulty to trust her other lovers.

My other friend didn’t told me if he was cheated on before. But he changes quickly the conversation when we talk about that. I guess it’s sensitive for him.

Infidelity isn’t only sexual. We can bond emotionally with someone else because our emotional needs are not met in our couple.

But I understand how hard it is to be cheated on. It feels like you’re not the number one in your significant other’s heart anymore. It hurts.

Recently, I bumped into my former chief on Tinder. I didn’t believe it was him when I saw his picture, but then, I realized it was him.

It’s not the first time I’ve bumped into someone I know from my professional circle. But my former chief is married and has two children. When I told this to one of my coworkers who knows him personally, she was shocked to hear this. But she admitted she has already heard rumors about him some weeks ago. “Promise me if you see my husband on Tinder to tell me about it” she added. “If I bust him on Tinder, he can pack his bags. I will leave him immediately” she said.

Unfortunately, it’s not the first time I’ve seen some of my acquaintances’ husband on Tinder. I bumped into one of my classmates’ husband some weeks ago. I don’t have regular contact with her anymore, so I didn’t warn her. But it’s very disappointing to see her husband and her are constantly writing messages on each other’s wall on Facebook, saying how they love each other. It may signal they are not very happy with each other, at least if we believe this study .

One of my friends also asked me to tell her everything if I see her significant other on Tinder. So far, it hasn’t been the case. Thankfully for her.

“I don’t understand why F. is on Tinder” said my coworker. “I don’t believe it’s for pure curiosity. What happens if he matches with another woman?” she added. He may have swiped right all women on Tinder, as men as way less picky than women on Tinder.

The married men I met on Tinder told me they were looking for a sex friend or a mistress. Unfortunately, very few men are honest and indicate their marital status in their Tinder profile. But most of the married men I swiped right immediately told me they were married. One was lying, but he added in his profile links to a youtube list where there was a video of him dancing with his wife, and saying how wonderful she was. The video was very recent.

Some women are ok with that. It’s not my case.

People can lie on internet (and on Tinder). But when you meet people in real life, it’s easy to spot the liar. If he’s married, there are chances he won’t be very available for a date, and find a time when it’s easier for him to hide from his wife without alarming her. If he doesn’t invite you at his place, it’s also a sign he’s not very available. If he invites you to places he’s sure he won’t meet some of his friends or his wife’s friends, it’s also a big warning sign. Unless you find a pathologic liar, master in his art of lying, there will always be some hints he’s not really honest with you.

Besides, if deep inside of you, your guts tell you there’s something wrong, listen to your inner feeling. When you meet someone who is right for you, you won’t feel those negative feelings.

Of course, if you’re just looking for a hookup, a sex friend, or someone who’s not really available, don’t follow this advice.

Recently, one of my friends announced her sister was divorcing. “She accepted the invitation to go on holiday with one of her friends who is single. It was just for a week. When she came back home, she noticed her home smelled bad because all the doors and windows remained closed during her week away. Nothing had changed since she left. And nothing was in the dishwasher, as if her husband wasn’t there at all. Her husband didn’t say anything to her. But he remained silent during the evening. It was 2AM when she woke up and decided to wake her daughter as she wanted to go to our parents’ house. As she brought her daughter to her car, her husband woke up, and wondered what she was doing. She started to scream at him and asked him to tell her what was wrong. He told her he had a lover, who was 14 years older than him and her. He spent the week with her. He told my sister she is the love of his life, and said they should divorced” my friend said. “He started his affair four months ago. He told my sister he lied to her when he had meetings. He even brought their daughter to her house to see if she was able to get along with her sons” she added.

Of course, her sister is devastated for the moment. But I bet her future ex-husband’s love story will turn sour sooner or later.

His double life didn’t last for long. But for some people, the double life can last a long time.

“Have you got a double life? Many people have one” one of my friends asked me a long time ago. It was during a dinner where we drank too much. But I still remember this conversation because it took me by surprise.

But what is a double life?

A double life is having two lives, one of which you do not want others to know about. A lover, kept secret, is part of that double life. But some people just keep a part of their life secret to their family and friends, for various reasons. I recently read the review of a film about voguers, an urban dance that grew out of New York in the gay community in the 80’s. Some of these dancers keep their activity secret because they risk to lose everything if they are discovered, including their life.

But secrets are hard to keep over a long time. Eventually, the truth will come out.

Albert Einstein, the famous physicist, had an IQ of 162. When he got famous for his theory about relativity, he started to collect a lot of mistresses.

His first marriage was also doomed because he started to cheat on his wife, who watched him slowly going away from her, with his cousin. After his divorce, he got married quickly to his cousin, who admired him, unlike his first wife who was also a physicist and could criticize his work. But his second marriage was doomed too, because of his theory about relativity which made him famous and offered him to travel around the world like a rock star to explain it.

So, if Einstein should serve as an example, he would invalidate this study which found that men with high IQ place greater value on monogamy and sexual exclusivity than their less intelligent peers.

I know another example invalidating this theory. He also has an IQ of 162, like Einstein, but he’s not a physicist. He’s an economist.

He got married twice, and cheated on his wives several times. He still collects many mistresses now. It’s not very difficult. Women run after him, as if he was a rock star too.

People are just fascinated by him. So they invite him everywhere to speak about his theories. No, he’s not Thomas Piketty nor Paul Krugman, but he’s famous in my country, and starts to be famous too in France. Every conference he gives, every seminar he’s invited to attract a lot of people, including women.

Unlike Einstein, celebrity didn’t offer him many opportunities to cheat. He was already unfaithful when he wasn’t famous.

But he’s an example too of a man with high IQ who doesn’t place greater value on monogamy and sexual exclusivity.

Like this article said, men with high IQ are more likely to lie. So, it’s possible that people didn’t answer honestly to the survey. After all, a recent study shows rich people don’t realize they are richer than they think.

In France, the president François Hollande is in the middle of a scandal because he got caught by a people magazine outside his lover’s apartment on New Year Day. Funny detail, the address of this apartment is the rue du Cirque ( Circus street) in Paris. As if his mandate is a circus…

The reactions around me were different around men and women. Some of my female friends shrugged their shoulders and said all the men are the same, while my male friends said that women were all attracted by power, because let’s said it, François Hollande is not Brad Pitt.

Well, most men are not Brad Pitt. I heard many times my male friends complaining they’re not Brad Pitt. Yet, they managed to catch a super awesome woman just because they were nice, fun, and caring for them.

Looking from Hollande’s gesture (he was bringing his mistress croissants on New Year’s day), he seems to fall into the same category as my male friends. Except that he’s the French president.

I bet Julie Gayet, the first time she met him, thought he wasn’t attractive at all.

I can tell you that, because the first time I met B., I thought he looked ridiculous with his loden coat and his big handbag. I was even scared about his power. And I thought he would never get interested in an ordinary woman like me.

But B. had a wow factor. He would defend me whenever I had an argument with people in a debate. He would always try to make me laugh and tell me to take things more lightly. He would also make me feel as if I was his equal.

And we may have the best example of this with Michelle and Barack Obama. She said she didn’t even look at him when she met him for the first time. He had to win her over.

So, probably, this is how François Hollande got into this scandal.

I hate to say it, but his actual official lover, who’s now in hospital, wasn’t the love of his life as he mentioned it before. If she was the love of his life, he would have run to her when he got elected. Instead, he tried to reach for his ex-wife, who was standing not far away for his lover on that day.

The person we run to whenever we want to share something small or important is our soul mate. We may have many friends, but we always run to a very small circle of people, and sometimes, this circle boils down to just one person.

We all know that because we know this person is the only one who can fully understand us.

But the quest to find that person is sometimes very long. And we might not see the obvious signs right away.

So, when François Hollande promised to the French people he would be a “normal president”, he would probably mean he would be a normal man, sometimes fooled over. Like many of us.

We can love two people, but we can’t fall in love with two people at the same time, says Francesco Alberoni in his book “Falling in love”.

That’s why we can fall in love with someone and live with him/her and then fall in love with someone else, without stopping loving the first person.

Some people can’t cope with this situation, while other are just fine with it. It depends if your first significant other cope with this or not. And if the other lover is OK with this too. But it’s not often the case.

Recently, a friend of mine told me she met a man in a networking event while she was traveling abroad. And she fell in love with him and started to have an affair. Five years ago, she got married to the one she loved. She chased him for years, and eventually got what she hoped from him. Yet, she said she felt an urge when she met the other man at this event.

Since then, she’s been lying to her husband whenever she had to meet the other man. And she told me she felt very guilty. So far, her husband hasn’t noticed anything. And the other one hasn’t asked him to choose between him and her husband yet.

“Are you happy? ” I asked to her. And she said yes. “I love them both. And I don’t want to lose anyone of them” she said.

Yet, she knows her happiness is fragile. Because when her husband will eventually know about her affair, he will feel betrayed. As for the other one, he’s aware she’s married. And seems fine with this.

My friend is just at the beginning of her affair. But over time, in my opinion, I don’t think it’s sustainable.

Some people do manage to keep their affair under wrap for years. But it’s difficult and this implies your official partner is somehow collusive of that.

In France, the minister Najat Vallaud-Belkacem wants to pass a law criminalizing men who pay for prostitutes. In Sweden, it’s been ten years such a law is applied. It hasn’t stop men for paying for sex though.

In my country, on the weekends, towns like Ghent see a lot of young Frenchmen coming and hang in their red lights district. Sometimes, these guys are a source of trouble as they get drunk and violent. But my country hasn’t taken any action against prostitution. So, if France votes for this law, I guess we will see more French men coming for paid sex in my country.

I ask myself why men want to pay for sex. Recently, a friend of mine complained to me about his neighbor, who has a very active sex life, with a different partner every night. “He told me he met all of his women at a bar not very far from our building. It’s a bar for single people, or people who want to be considered as single. For the women, if they want to get laid, they just put their handbag on the counter” my friend says. He swears all these women aren’t prostitute.

Another friend of mine told me he met a lot of women on dating sites who were just looking for sex. “They were waiting for me to come at their place. Usually, they opened their door while they were almost naked” he said. And he swears he used only well known dating sites, not those specialized in escort girls.

But I’ve met some men who need to go and see prostitute. One of them is married, but he’s fascinated by black women…

Rich or poor, some men can’t help seeing prostitutes, even if they’re married. Recently, in France, a former minister got caught in a scandal with escort girls. He was married, and had a heavy turnover of mistresses, yet, he needed to see prostitutes. Even Justin Bieber seems attracted by escort girls, as he was seen recently exit a brothel in Brazil. But here, I don’t understand, because music stars usually have groupies who wait for them at the end of their concert, who would do anything to have sex with them. For free.

There are also special cases. Some men are unable for relationships, because they are socially disable. In my office, we have someone like that. He’s overweight, has difficulties to bond with his coworkers and he seems to be affected with the Asperger syndrom. We all know he’s seeing from time to time prostitutes who work not far away from our office.